Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Yankees took the first game of the three-game set in Oakland yesterday behind a masterfully brilliant complete-game shutout by Bartolo Colon. After getting Trevor Cahill yesterday, the Yankees will face another young pitching star tonight in southpaw Brett Anderson. The short scoop on Anderson is that he's pretty much like Cahill except with better strikeout and walk rates. His groundball per ball in play rate of 56% is, along with Cahill's, one of the best in the league. Basically, he's really good, and also like Cahill, he's only 23. I'm liking the spin deflection charts these days, so here they are for Anderson's 2011, along with pitch results in tabular form below.

mph

#

Swing Rate

Whiff Rate

Zone Rate

Ball Rate

nsCall Rate

GB Rate

Sinker

90.1

246

.362

.101

.459

.435

.318

.688

Fastball

91.4

237

.426

.149

.451

.384

.331

.429

Slider

80.4

411

.474

.246

.457

.304

.421

.632

Curveball

74.8

73

.301

.182

.534

.342

.510

.500

Changeup

82.3

53

.358

.000

.528

.415

.353

.250

1020

.418

.178

.466

.363

.377

.560

Anderson's signature pitch is his slider. He throws it a ton (40% of the time to both righties and lefties), and looks to be pretty effective despite a below league-average whiff rate. He throws it over the plate a lot and gets called strikes with it; when batters hit it, they usually hit it into the ground. Anderson's sinker generates a ton of grounders as well, and his other fastball isn't bad at getting grounders compared to other four-seamers. As for his other pitches: his curve is just a slower version of his slider (like CC Sabathia's curve), and his changeup is his weakest pitch, only shown to right-handed batters.

Pie charts for selection based on batter-handedness:

Anderson likes to go with his sinker in on lefties and four-seamer in on righties:

He'll keep the ball below the middle-third about 30% of the time, especially with his sinker and slider:

Anderson is not a bat-misser, but he's around the zone and has a nasty arsenal of pitches for picking up grounders.